Sunday, June 12, 2011

Thee Flacks Report [10 June 2011]

Judicial Pay Panel---Joan O'Dwyer---Post's Lawsuit to Proceed---What's This?
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Cuomo Appointments Finalize Judicial Pay Panel
By Joel Stashenko, New York Law Journal, June 13, 2011

Governor Andrew M. Cuomo rounded out the membership of a commission that will consider possible adjustments in state judges' salaries over the next four years. Mr. Cuomo named William C. Thompson Jr., the ex-comptroller of New York City, as chairman of the Judicial Compensation Commission. He is currently chief administrative officer and senior managing director at Siebert Brandford Shank & Co.

Mr. Cuomo also named two other representatives on the seven-member compensation board: Richard Cotton, the general counsel of NBC-Universal, and William Mulrow, a senior managing director at Blackstone. The governor's appointments complete the make-up of a pay panel, which was authorized last year.

Other members of the pay commission are Robert Fiske Jr. of Davis Polk & Wardwell; Kathryn S. Wylde, president of the Partnership of New York City; Mark S. Hulholland of Ruskin Moscou Faltischek; and James Tallon, former Assembly majority leader and current member of the Board of Regents. They were appointed, respectively, by Chief Judge Jonathan Lippman; Senate Majority Leader Dean Skelos, R-Rockville Centre; and Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, D-Manhattan.

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Joan O'Dwyer
(9/26/1926 - 6/6/2011)

Joan O'Dwyer, the first woman appointed as a Criminal Court judge in Queens, died on June 6th, 2011. Ms. O'Dwyer's judicial service career spanned 50 years, beginning in 1959 as a New York City Municipal Court judge. In 1960, she was appointed to Criminal Court, where she sat until she was named an Acting Supreme Court Justice in 1980. In 1985, Governor Mario Cuomo tapped Ms. O'Dwyer for the Court of Claims, where she remained until her retirement in 1996. A graduate of Columbia Law School, Ms. O'Dwyer was one of 12 women in her class of 200. She was admitted to the bar in 1950 and earned her B.A. from Beaver College in 1947. Ms. O'Dwyer was married to Anthony P. Savarese, the former Supreme Court justice and assemblyman from Queens, who died in 2002. Her daughter, Kelly O'Neill Levy, is a New York City Civil Court judge sitting in Bronx Family Court. Other survivors include sons Shane and Liam, and 5 grandchildren.

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New York Post's Bid to Depose Judges in Libel Suit Upheld
By Daniel Wise, New York Law Journal, Monday, May 16, 2011

Over the objections of the state court system, eight judges, including Chief Administrative Judge Ann Pfau, have been ordered to answer questions under oath regarding the truth of articles in the Post, which reported in October, 2005, that Brooklyn Justice Francois A. Rivera was under investigation for allegedly paying $50,000 to buy a Democratic nomination to the Supreme Court, and the extent of injury the articles caused to Justice Rivera's reputation.

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What's This?

Published on The Smirking Chimp (http://www.smirkingchimp.com)

Tell Judge Restrepo He Needs to Go Back and Study His Constitution By Dave Lindorff, June 10, 2011

Federal Judge Filipe Restrepo, a man with a solid history as a defender of civil liberties and civil rights, and a defense attorney by training and private practice experience, seems sadly to have gotten a bit thin-skinned after donning the robes of a federal judge.

As my colleague Linn Washington wrote earlier this week, the judge lost it when Hampton Coleman had the effrontery to write a 28-word letter to Restrepo questioning the judge's integrity and his commitment to "blind justice," and warning that "we the people" would be "watching and listening very carefully" to the judge.

In response to that angry but innocuous letter, Judge Restrepo dispatched two members of the US Federal Marshals Service to make an early morning visit to Coleman, where they reportedly accused him of sending a "threatening" letter and warned him not to send any more. (As Washington recounts, when Coleman asked the marshals about his First Amendment rights, they told him the Constitution was "an old document" and that it was "irrelevant."

I would argue when a federal judge thinks that receiving a letter from a citizen telling him to honor the Constitution and warning him that the public will be "watching and listening" to his actions in court constitutes a possible criminal act that calls for a threatening home visit by US Marshals, that judge has himself become a threat to a free society.

Interestingly, another of my colleagues here at ThisCantBeHappening!, John Grant, says that a PDF file put out by Judge Restrepo's own office says that "Judge Restrepo permits correspondence with the Court on all matters."

Fair enough! I am calling for our readers here at ThisCantBeHappening! to take him up on that invitation, and to let the judge know in no uncertain terms that it's not just Hampton Coleman who is going to be watching and listening to his actions and decisions on the federal bench here in Philadelphia.

So please, if you feel that this behavior by Judge Restrepo was an outrage, send him a letter too....

For the rest of this article and call to action by DAVE LINDORFF in ThisCantBeHappening!, the new independent alternative online newspaper, please go to: http://www.thiscantbehappening.net/node/651

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Now is the winter of our fiscal discontent
made glorious summer by this sun of Mario.
From ALAN FLACKS at: alphlax@yahoo.com
Tele.: (212) 840+12.34

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